Solar power is expanding rapidly. The United States now has over 60 gigawatts (GW) of solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity installed — enough to power nearly one in every 11 homes in America. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have invested in solar energy and millions more are ready to join them.

America’s major cities have played a key role in the clean energy revolution and stand to reap tremendous benefits from solar energy. As population centers, they are major sources of electricity demand and, with millions of rooftops suitable for solar panels, they have the potential to be major sources of clean energy production as well.

Our sixth annual survey of solar energy in America’s biggest cities finds that the amount of solar power installed in just 20 U.S. cities exceeds the amount installed in the entire United States at the end of 2010. Of the 57 cities surveyed in all six editions of this report, 79 percent more than doubled their total installed solar PV capacity between 2013 and 2018.

To continue America’s progress toward renewable energy, cities, states and the federal government should adopt strong policies to make it easy for homeowners, businesses and utilities to “go solar.”

The cities with the most solar PV installed per resident are the “Solar Stars” — cities with 50 or more watts of solar PV capacity installed per capita. In 2013, only eight of the cities surveyed for this report had enough solar PV per capita to be ranked as “Solar Stars,” but now 23 cities have earned the title.

Highlights

Honolulu leads the United States for solar power per person among cities surveyed, followed by San Diego, San Jose and Burlington, Vermont. All of the “Solar Stars” have experienced dramatic growth in solar energy and are setting the pace nationally for solar energy development.

One-third of the 57 cities surveyed in all six editions of this report more than quadrupled their installed solar PV capacity from 2013 to 2018.

Los Angeles leads the nation in total installed solar PV capacity among the 69 cities surveyed in this report; as it did from 2013 to 2015 and in 2017, after briefly being topped by San Diego in 2016. Since 2016, Los Angeles has added over 150 MW of solar capacity.

Leading solar cities can be found in every region of the country. Leaders in per capita solar capacity by census region include Honolulu in the Pacific region; Las Vegas in the Mountain region; Indianapolis in the North Central region; San Antonio in the South Central region; Washington, D.C., in the South Atlantic region; and Burlington, Vermont, in the Northeast region.

Solar panels generate power at the Market One commercial building in Des Moines, Iowa.

Jared Heidemann, U.S. Department of Energy via Flickr, CC-BY-1.0.

Many smaller cities and towns are also going big on solar energy.

Santa Fe, New Mexico, had 19 MW of cumulative solar PV capacity installed as of the end of 2018, equivalent to 225 watts per person. That’s more solar PV capacity per capita than any city on our list other than Honolulu and San Diego.

Tallahassee, Florida, has enough solar PV capacity installed (30 MW total and 157 watts per person) to be ranked as a leading “Solar Star.”

Trenton, New Jersey, also has enough solar PV capacity installed to be ranked as a “Solar Star.” With New Jersey’s new Community Solar Energy Pilot Program, residents who cannot install their own solar panels will now be able to “go solar” by purchasing electricity from community solar projects.

Fossil fuel interests and some utilities are working to slow the growth of distributed solar energy.

Over the past few years, many states have considered or passed cuts to net metering — the critical practice of crediting solar energy customers for the excess energy they supply to the grid. Additionally, some states and utilities are now targeting solar customers with special fees, charges and rate designs in order to reduce the appeal and financial promise of installing solar panels. These changes, such as imposing demand charges and other electric bill fees only on solar customers specifically, could cause solar panel owners to pay as much for electricity as other customers, even though they consume less electricity from the grid.

Rooftop solar panels on a school in Portland, Oregon.

Portland General Electric via Flickr, CC BY-ND 2.0

U.S. cities have only begun to tap their solar energy potential.

Some of the cities in this report could generate hundreds of times more solar power than they do today. A National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) study estimated that small building rooftops alone are technically capable of hosting enough solar energy to cover the annual electricity needs of more than 121 million American homes — about as many as exist in the U.S. Cities can go even farther by encouraging solar installations on large buildings and stand-alone utility-scale installations.

Our recommendations

To take advantage of the nation’s vast solar potential and move America toward an economy powered by 100 percent renewable energy, city, state and federal governments should adopt a series of strong pro-solar policies.

Local governments should, among other things:

Establish goals for solar energy adoption and programs to meet those goals.

Implement solar access ordinances to protect residents’ right to generate solar energy on their own property.

Make permitting, zoning and inspection processes easy, quick and affordable.

Expand access to solar energy to apartment dwellers, low-income residents, small businesses and nonprofits through community solar projects and third-party financing options, such as power purchase agreements.

Continue and expand financing support for solar energy, particularly the Solar Investment Tax Credit, which provides a 30 percent tax credit for the cost of installing solar panels. The credit should be extended to apply to energy storage systems, such as home batteries.

Continue to support research to drive solar power innovations, such as the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office.

ACT NOW

If we want cleaner air and a more stable climate, we need to harness energy from the sun. That's why we're calling on cities to go big on solar.

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